Abstinence
by Befham
Summary: Dr. Wyatt wants Meredith to take a three month vow of abstinence. Seriously, how hard could it be?


**Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy. I am however hopeful that MerDer will be a bit happier in season 9.**

* * *

"Seriously?"

She knew therapy was a bad idea, but Dr. Wyatt slowly got her to open up and she is already beginning to see the benefits of pouring out her life story to a complete stranger. There's no judgement, no rush from Dr. Wyatt. It boosts her confidence that the woman must have seen bigger fuck ups in her career than dark and twisty Meredith Grey. She wants to do this, to be fixed and healed for Derek so they can have their big house and marriage and babies and a lawnmower.

But this is completely ridiculous.

Meredith fails to see how not having sex for three months will achieve anything.

She won't do it.

It's not the fact that she wants to sleep with other men. She just wants to sleep with a certain Neurosurgeon. Since their one nightstand over a year ago, she's only wanted one man in her bed, and when she couldn't have him, she settled for random men and put her vivid imagination to good use.

Derek maybe fed up of waiting around for her and is now dating the nurse, but Meredith's hopeful that they'll get through all of this and find a way to be together in a way that suits them both.

Dr Wyatt blinks in that shrinky way of hers and replies with a simple, "Yes."

The two women stare at one another in silence for several minutes. Meredith stares at her in disbelief and almost expects the older woman to jump out of her chair and yell, "Gotcha!"

Meredith laughs. Dr. Wyatt lifts her eyebrows in surprise. "This is a joke, right?"

"No."

Meredith's laughter cuts off abruptly. "What?"

"This isn't a joke Meredith. I want you to take a three months vow of abstinence."

Her mind flashes back to the last vow of abstinence that she made the previous year and how she substituted sex with knitting. And just when she was getting good she met Finn. And then she had sex with Derek at prom.

Her last vow of abstinence didn't go very well.

"Why?!"

"You don't make an emotional connection to the men in your life. Look at Derek. You started out by sleeping together, and now that you've ended your relationship because you're not ready for the emotional needs in your relationship, you've gone back to just having sex. You develop a sexual connection with men easily, now you need to learn to connect emotionally."

"So no sex is going to achieve that?! No. No way. I am not doing-"

"Do you not want to get Derek back?" Dr. Wyatt interrupts. "Derek wants a life with you, he wants a serious relationship. Don't you want that too?"

Meredith doesn't answer for a moment. Does she want that, a life with Derek? A happy ever after? She almost snorts. No amount of therapy could convince her that happy ever afters exist. But she really did want to share her life with Derek. She wanted to trust him, to marry him, to have a child with him. But after everything that has happened in her past, and in their past, it terrifies her.

"Yes," she replies quietly. "I want that too."

"But right now it terrifies you. What is holding you back Meredith?"

"What if I'm like Ellis? What if I make the same mistakes she did and let surgery become my life? What if I actually do get the husband and baby, I mess it all up and cheat on my husband and ignore my child? I can't take that risk, hurting Derek now is much simpler than doing it if we're married and have a child."

Dr. Wyatt studies her closely. "What if Derek moves on with his nurse? What if he marries her and has a baby with her?" Meredith flinches at the thought, but Dr. Wyatt is unrelenting. "Can you honestly sit by and watch as Derek moves on with the life that you want with another woman?"

Tears pool in Meredith's eyes but she blinks them away impatiently. "No. But-"

"There are no buts Meredith! You are not your mother. The only thing you have in common are her looks and her skill with a scalpel. Would your mother have ever come to therapy? You want to change your life. After the love of her life left her, Ellis Grey pulled away from her emotions. You're not, you're here confronting your emotions and your past. You never have to be your mother, Meredith. You can learn from her mistakes."

Meredith blinks slowly as Dr. Wyatt's words turn in her mind.

_You are not your mother._

_Learn from her mistakes._

What she is doing right now is exactly what her mother would do, push the man she loves away.

And she really doesn't want to end up like her mother.

Meredith squares her shoulders. "Okay. So no sex? No problem."

Seriously, how hard could it be?


End file.
